afrol News, 13 December - The United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, today slammed a 15-year imprisonment on a Rwandan Catholic priest after he was found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide. Father Athanase Seromba, the first priest to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), maintained his innocence to the charges brought against him.

His main charge is the order he allegedly gave to Hutu extremist militias to bulldoze his church situated at Nyange, the west of Rwanda, which was harbouring about 2,000 Tutsis who attempted to flee the genocide. Nobody escaped the attack because even those survived bulldozing were killed with machetes and guns.

Since inception two years ago, the court - which has been prosecuting suspects of the 1994 genocide in which about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered - has sentenced 27 people and acquitted five.

Even more suspects have been tried by military tribunals and "people courts" (gacacas) in Rwanda.

Earlier, a military tribunal in Kigali found another Rwanda Catholic priest resident in France guilty of rape and involvement in the 100 day genocide. He was sentenced to life in prison in absentia.

Wenceslas Munyeshyaka was accused of delivering hundreds of adults and children to the genocidal militias, which brutally slaughtered them. He was also found guilty of rape and aiding militias to kill hundreds of Tutsi refugees at the Holy Father Cathedral in downtown Kigali, where he headed.

Mr Munyeshyaka had been jointly tried with General Laurent Munyakazi, leader of the army in Kigali's Nyarugenge District, where the church is located.

"Munyeshyaka and Munyakazi worked with militias to deliver hundreds of innocent children, women and men to militias to be killed," Brigadier-General Karenzi Karake, a judge of the military tribunal, told a packed courtroom.

However, the tribunal acquitted General Munyakazi on rape charges but ruled that father Munyeshyaka had, on several occasions, raided halls where refugees had sought shelter at the Holy Family Church complex to pick out young girls and women whom he raped in nearby buildings.

"We will once again request France to extradite Munyeshyaka to serve his sentence in Rwanda," Major Christopher Bizimungu, the prosecutor, said.

Rwanda has accused France of hosting many genocide suspects and of not cooperating in the prosecution of this crime against humanity. An estimated 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists during the 1994 genocide.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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